Kathrin Mahler Walther is Executive Chair of EAF Berlin and advises organizations in business, politics and academia on promoting diversity in leadership. She has led various career-building and mentoring programs, change projects and studies. Representing EAF, she is a much in-demand speaker, facilitator and trainer, especially on issues around unconscious bias and inclusive leadership.

In 2021, Kathrin Mahler Walther was voted 1st on the list of PROUTinSMEs and is thus once again one of GERMANY'S TOP 100 OUT EXECUTIVES, a selection of LGBTIQ* leaders who are committed to equal opportunities and diversity in the world of work.

The issue of how we can best shape both society and the world of work in a fair and inclusive way is a key driver of her activities. Her commitment to a diverse, democratic society goes back a long way: In the 1980s, she became involved in East Germany’s civic movement, for which she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with Ribbon by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Kathrin Mahler Walther studied social sciences in Jena, Berlin and New York with the help of a scholarship from the Hans Böckler Foundation. She trained as a systemic organizational consultant at isi Berlin and at Riesner & Braun Consulting. With Thais Compoint, CEO of Céclic International, she gained broad expertise as a trainer for inclusive leadership. She is an alumna of the Leadership Program and the Digital Leadership Track 2020/2021 of the LEAD Academy and the German-Israeli Young Leaders Exchange of the Bertelsmann Foundation.

In 2012, she was one of the founders of the German Mentoring Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Mentoring - DGM), serving on the board until 2020. She is also currently active as a mentor in Netzwerk Chancen and MentorMe. She has been a member of the board of trustees of TOTAL E-QUALITY Deutschland e.V. since 2023.

Before joining EAF Berlin, Kathrin Mahler Walther was involved in various projects in the field of equal opportunities and gender research, including for Femtec.Network, for Catalyst – one of the leading organizations promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in the US – for the Hans Böckler Foundation and for DaimlerChrysler AG, where she conducted a research project on attracting women to industrial-technical vocational training programs.

Kathrin Mahler Walther then graduated from a vocational course as a specialist in writing technique at the Urania publishing house in Leipzig. She was involved in political activities for several years as an active participant in the East German civic movement and was a member of the Initiative for Peace and Human Rights (Initiative Frieden und Menschenrechte – IFM), which she represented at Round Table events in Leipzig. In 1991 and ’92 she was a speaker and consultant on social and equal opportunities policy in the first democratically elected regional parliament in Saxony, thus living through the first phases of transformation in the former East Germany.

Publications

Please find seltected publications bei Kathrin Mahler Walther in German language here